Product Owner

Title: Product Owner 5
Location: Chicago, IL- hybrid schedule requiring 2 3 days onsite per week
Pay rate: $70-$72/hr

About The AES Group
The AES Group is a premier technology and engineering consulting company that has been bringing businesses and talent together for over 20 years to deliver innovative solutions that have the greatest positive impact on society. AES has helped over 40 business enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, engage their customers, empower their employees, and transform their business operations with the power of cloud, data, AI, engineering, and other emerging technologies. Position Overview

Our client is seeking an experienced Lead Technical Product Owner (Product Owner 5) on behalf of one of our clients. This role is ideal for a technically strong professional who began their career in software development or engineering and subsequently transitioned into product ownership.

The successful candidate will lead technical product ownership activities, translate business and customer needs into actionable requirements, manage software change requests, and coordinate product implementation, integration, testing, and ongoing maintenance. The role requires strong hands-on technical knowledge, sound business judgment, and the ability to collaborate effectively with engineering teams, customers, leadership, and field support specialists.

Key Responsibilities

• Partner with software engineering and product development teams to track development, integration, support, maintenance issues, and resolutions.

• Gather, analyze, document, and communicate customer and field support feedback to identify product improvements and business opportunities.

• Identify, prioritize, track, and report software defects, reliability concerns, maintenance issues, and product performance gaps.

• Manage technical product requirements, features, enhancements, and priorities in alignment with business objectives and stakeholder expectations.

• Lead software change request management, including requirements analysis, impact assessment, risk identification, cost estimation, resource planning, and status reporting.

• Provide technical guidance on product implementation, configuration, customization, integration, and infrastructure-related challenges.

• Apply business analysis techniques to evaluate business needs, assess alternatives, and recommend practical, value-driven solutions.

• Coordinate software integration across platforms and systems, leveraging knowledge of AWS and API/web services.

• Plan and coordinate user acceptance testing (UAT), define acceptance criteria, develop test strategies, and validate solutions with end users.

• Facilitate issue resolution by collaborating with customers, development engineers, vendors, and field support teams.

• Communicate technical updates, product changes, risks, and issue resolutions to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.

• Monitor product usage, customer feedback, and performance metrics to identify opportunities for continuous improvement and increased adoption.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field.

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering and/or product ownership.

• 6+ years of experience in a Lead Product Owner role.

• Prior hands-on experience as a software developer or software engineer, followed by a transition into technical product ownership.

• Strong, practical knowledge of AWS cloud services and API/web services.

• Demonstrated experience managing technical software products, product requirements, enhancements, and software change requests.

• Strong business analysis capabilities, including requirements elicitation, stakeholder management, impact assessment, and solution evaluation.

• Experience in software defect management, problem resolution, issue tracking, escalation, and risk assessment.

• Extensive experience with UAT, acceptance criteria, test planning, and end-user validation.

• Strong understanding of software product functionality, customer use cases, product lifecycle management, and continuous improvement.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, critical thinking, prioritization, and decision-making skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Agile certification.

• Experience with Jira or Azure DevOps for backlog, requirements, and work-item management.

• Experience with ServiceNow for incident, problem, or change management.

• Familiarity with Agile software development methodologies and end-to-end product delivery processes.

Key Skill

Technical Product Ownership | Software Engineering | AWS | API/Web Services | Business Analysis | Requirements Management | Software Change Requests | Defect and Problem Management | UAT | Agile Delivery | Stakeholder Management | Product Lifecycle Management